


Silence

by anachronicity



Category: Hannibal (TV), Hannibal Lecter Series - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Ambiguous Relationships, Canon-Typical Violence, Manipulation, Multi, Religious Imagery & Symbolism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-31
Updated: 2013-09-30
Packaged: 2017-12-21 22:04:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 13,536
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/905468
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anachronicity/pseuds/anachronicity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Somebody is killing with the same <i>modus operandi</i> as the Chesapeake Ripper. Crawford, at a loss, sends trainee Clarice Starling to enlist the help of Will Graham, who has been incarcerated for the Ripper murders for years.</p>
<p>Meanwhile Alana, looking for the truth, sets Freddie Lounds on the trail of the real Ripper.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. one

**Author's Note:**

> probably most accurately described as a silence of the lambs/hannibal fusion; i shamelessly lifted things straight from sotl and stuck them in hannibal 'verse and this was what happened. you don't really need any knowledge of sotl canon to read this, though.
> 
> or, how season 2 almost certainly won't happen but does in my head where it is the "clarice starling and her supporting cast of all these awesome ladies calling hannibal on his shit" show.
> 
> **content warnings** for canon-typical violence (read: murder, cannibalism, romanticisation of murder and cannibalism, general moral fuckery), varying levels of misogyny including an incident of sexual assault in the first chapter, some very dubious treatment of mental illness, people playing around with people's minds, misuse of religious iconography, and nobody having any professional ethics at all.

" _There's no art_  
 _To find the mind's construction in the face:_  
 _He was a gentleman on whom I built_  
 _An absolute trust._ " - Macbeth, Act I scene iv

*

"He doesn't talk to anyone," the orderly told Clarice Starling, as another forbidding metal door swung shut behind them.  
  
Above ground, the Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane was a characterless institutional building. Here in the basement which housed the high-security cells, stripped of its faux-Grecian columns and tan plaster, it resembled much more the prison which it was. Starling refused to let it make her uncomfortable.  
  
Starling had told Jack Crawford when he assigned her to this job, " _I don't spook easily, sir_." He had shaken his head.  
  
" _That isn't the issue you'll have_ ," he told her. " _Just about the opposite. He seems completely reasonable. The problem is keeping in mind that he is dangerous._ "  
  
"Other than that he's a model patient," the orderly continued, breaking into her thoughts. "If he were anyone else we'd have moved him out of there into a communal ward by now, you know, but..." They came to a halt before yet another security door, to which the orderly gestured. "He's back here. The room at the end. You don't mind going in on your own, do you?"  
  
Starling shook her head. "Might be better if I do, actually."  
  
The orderly swung the door open. "Good luck, Agent Starling," he murmured as she passed him, shoes tapping against the bare concrete floor.  
  
The chiaroscuro of low-powered fluorescent bulbs in the long corridor was such that Starling could not see clearly past the bars on her left. She was aware of moments of movement but focused on her destination.  
  
When she stopped outside the cell at the end, she could see a figure sitting on the floor beside the small cot. He showed no sign of acknowledging her, even though she knew her shoes had announced her. She shifted the file she carried to her other arm, and cleared her throat. "Excuse me. Mr Graham?"  
  
He turned his head.  
  
For the first time, Clarice Starling was face-to-face with Will Graham: legendary FBI profiler, cautionary tale in the Academy - the Chesapeake Ripper.  
  
His eyes were dark and hooded, and fixed her defiantly, as his lips pressed together in an unreadable expression. Starling swallowed and pressed ahead. "Mr Graham, I'm Clarice Starling. We were wondering if you would help us by answering a few questions."  
  
In silence, Graham stood. He moved closer to the bars, not breaking the eye contact that made Starling feel like she was being examined. The way he moved put her in mind of a feral dog.  
  
Starling waited. There were several possible tactics she could try from this point, but she doubted they would be effective on this wary creature behind the bars. She opened her mouth but before she could speak, Graham did.  
  
"Which questions this time?" His voice was rusted with disuse and freighted with bitterness. "Do you want a sensation story? Go ahead. Ask me. How does it feel when I kill? What drove me off the rails? What did I do with the organs?"  
  
"I'm not a reporter, Mr Graham."  
  
"That's good. I'm not a story."  
  
"I'm with the FBI - Jack Crawford sent me. We want to ask you about -"  
  
"Does Jack think I'm any more likely to answer him because he sends a fresh young face?" He was all at once very close to the bars, and Starling tried not to lean away. "The FBI used me for all I was worth, to the end of my rope and further, and then they threw me away. Called me insane and locked me up for murders I didn't commit. I wouldn't talk to the FBI if you paid me."  
  
"You're talking to me," Starling couldn't help but point out.  
  
The noise Graham made could have been a laugh or a cough. "So I am. Well, I'm talking to you. That doesn't mean I have to answer the FBI's questions. Especially Jack Crawford's - Jack who feels so guilty that he didn't catch me sooner, didn't see me coming, that he keeps me locked in solitary so I can't fool anyone else into believing I'm innocent."  
  
"Mr Graham, your help on this case could be very valuable to us. You know, we still hear about you in the Academy - you're one of the best profilers there's ever been."  
  
"In the Academy. Tell me, Agent Starling, are you still studying?"  
  
"Yes, sir, I am."  
  
"Mm. How does it feel to be Jack Crawford's latest sacrificial lamb?" Starling blinked; found she could not answer. Graham said, "He does this a lot, you know. Favors a bright young agent. Sends them into a tight place. Sometimes they find the body later." She could feel his eyes gauging her response.  
  
A movement at Starling's side broke the moment. The orderly stood next to her, holding a chair. "Thought you might want this," he said, voice neutral. His eyes, though, were curious, darting between Graham and Starling.  
  
Starling thanked him. Graham watched him darkly as he left, then turned his attention back to Starling.  
  
"Clarice - may I call you Clarice? - I can't see that we're going to get anywhere with this. I won't help you, or anyone from the FBI, and you can run back and tell Jack that. Maybe he'll give you a pat on the head for your trouble."  
  
Starling leant forward. "Mr Graham, people are dying. If you help us catch this killer it could save lives."  
  
This time the sound he made was certainly a laugh, a bitter and scornful one. "You can't believe that I'm a murderer and try to appeal to my morals. Pick one or the other."  
  
"But you don't think you're a murderer, which means you at least believe you have morals to appeal to."  
  
"But you don't believe that."  
  
Starling said nothing.  
  
"I can't help you if you aren't going to believe me. You can't believe me if you think I'm insane. I'm not insane, Clarice. You come back believing that, maybe I'll help you."  
  
"Help me, or help the FBI?"  
  
"It's one and the same, isn't it? You're ambitious, you're here because you're hoping to impress Jack - you want a good position, you want to be praised and noticed. That's what you want so badly that you're here to simper at a murderous madman -" His eyes were distant but flashed with a strange passion. Starling sprang to her feet, clutching the case file against her.  
  
"You're right. We're not going to get anywhere with this. Thank you for your time, Mr Graham," she said stiffly.  
  
She turned to go, but a hoarse cry of "Wait!" arrested her.  
  
"I'm sorry that I offended you," Graham said. "I thought you might be someone who wasn't afraid of the truth."  
  
"I'm not afraid of the truth, Mr Graham," Starling told him.  
  
"Then find it," he said. She looked at him for another moment, then departed, her heels clicking down the corridor.  
  
Alone in his cell, Will Graham wondered, among other things, when he had started looking at people like crime scenes.

*

Hannibal Lecter always looked at people like crime scenes: crime scenes waiting to happen. In the antechamber of his mind palace, the young woman in his office has learned too much. She has her back turned as he advances on her, silent on stocking feet, and then she is clawing against his grip on her neck and going limp, a dead weight in his cradling arms.  
  
In reality, while the young agent in his office may be another Miriam Lass, she did not yet know too much - or, for that matter, anything at all.  
  
Clarice Starling watched Dr. Lecter from the leather armchair which she did not know had been Will Graham's usual place. There could not be a more marked difference between the man she had met earlier and the one now in the armchair opposite hers. Will Graham was a feral dog, wary, afraid and beaten, and he was caged. Hannibal Lecter had the supreme confidence of a wolf who knows he is in his own territory where he is the top predator. Despite - maybe because of - his impeccable manners and three-piece suits, this mild psychiatrist frightened Starling more than the serial murderer.  
  
"I'm afraid I do not think I can help you," Dr. Lecter said. "Will's insistence on his innocence, along with his amnesia relating to his crimes, is a regrettably persistent delusion which I believe can be traced back to the autoimmune encephalitis for which he was treated shortly after his arrest. It is hard for me to be sure, of course, since I myself have not seen Will since not long after that."  
  
"According to his file, it was on your advice that the court found Will Graham mentally unstable."  
  
The tilt of Dr. Lecter's thin mouth indicated chagrin. "Yes. You see, Agent Starling, I regretted - still regret greatly - that I failed to recognise Will's instability before it was too late. The least I could do was try to make amends for my professional failings in that regard, by making sure that the court recognised what I had not." His eyes, which had been lowered in reminiscence, snapped up and held Starling's. "I understand why you want to... exonerate him, Agent Starling. Will Graham is a complex man, and it can be hard to believe that he would capable of the things he has done - that an evil nature can wear such an innocent face."  
  
Starling said, "He certainly seemed honest enough to me."  
  
"And that is why he is so very dangerous. He deceived all of us for many years, Agent Starling. I do not blame you for being taken in."  
  
Dr. Lecter had extraordinary eyes; a dark enough shade of maroon that they seemed to have no pupil, or to be entirely pupil; the light shone on them in red sparks like embers at an unimaginable distance. When they moved from Starling she felt as if a pall had been lifted.  
  
"Now I must ask you to excuse me," he said, rising, polite and diffident once again. "I have a patient waiting."  
  
Starling stood as well. "Yes, of course. Thank you for your time, Doctor Lecter."  
  
He ushered her out the door into the waiting room. Starling was halfway across the room before she noticed the man hunched against the wall, standing with bent knees, one hand at his collar and the other over his crotch. The sound of heavy breathing put her on edge, but he did not seem to notice her.  
  
She took two more steps. A voice hissed, " _I can smell your cunt_."  
  
Starling froze. The man still had not looked at her. She could call for Dr. Lecter. But that would be even more humiliating; really, this was no worse than walking past a nightclub in the evening or a construction site.  
  
She took another step. There was convulsive movement. All at once the man was moving towards her, rasping between his teeth, "I bit my wrist so I can die - see how it bleeds -" too close, with humid breath wet against her face and then his hand on her cheek, wet too, not with blood but, she registered with disgust, semen.  
  
Some deeply buried part of her training or perhaps instinct surfaced and as he reached for her again she grabbed his wrist, digging fingernails into the fleshy underside, and twisted, and at the same time she brought the heel of her shoe down on the arch of his foot. He grunted in pain and staggered back. She hissed in strange satisfaction to hear him.  
  
Dr. Lecter's voice cracked out like a whip.  
  
"Mister Miggs!"  
  
The man started and cringed, like a whipped dog. The next moment Dr. Lecter was there, with a firm grip on his shoulder, pushing him away. "Go wait in my office, please," he said, and the man disappeared.  
  
Starling refused to allow her knees to give out. She was concentrating so hard on maintaining this scrap of dignity that it startled her when Dr. Lecter made a soft interrogative sound and offered her a handkerchief. She hadn't seen where the handkerchief came from, but of course he was the sort of person who would carry a handkerchief. She accepted it, managing a nod of thanks.  
  
"I would not have had this happen to you," Dr. Lecter said softly as she wiped her face. "Discourtesy is unspeakably ugly to me." There was something in his voice and manner that Starling could not read. She hoped that it was an opening. If not, her entire trip here had been wasted.  
  
"Please help me with Will Graham, doctor," she said. Uncertain what to do with the handkerchief, she balled it in one fist, and waited for him to reply. He studied her, face impassive; she held her breath.  
  
"Come to dinner at my house, tomorrow night," Dr. Lecter said at length. "It would please me very much to have you, and we can, perhaps, discuss Will Graham."  
  
While her external response was a polite nod of assent, inside, Starling was screaming with relief.  
  
On the way out, she threw away the soiled handkerchief.  
  
*  
  
Ardelia Mapp got back to the dorm room she shared with Clarice Starling that night to find the latter face-down on her bed.  
  
"What have you been doing with yourself, girl?" she asked, flinging her bag aside and perching on the edge of the bed.  
  
Clarice rolled over with a groan. "Disappointing Crawford by getting told to fuck off by one mass murderer and one respected psychiatrist, part of it with come on my face."  
  
Smoothing Clarice's hair back from her face, Ardelia said, "Damn, I wish I had time for a social life like that."  
  
Clarice laughed until she cried.  
  
*  
  
A knock at Freddie Lounds' door. She sighed, spun away from the monitor where her latest article was stuck in mid-flow, and shouted "Come in!"  
  
Wendy poked her head around the door. "I'm heading to work, and there's someone here to see you - a Dr. Bloom?"  
  
"Dr. Bloom - Alana Bloom?" Freddie frowned.  
  
"Yeah, something like that. She's waiting for you in the kitchen."  
  
"Weird. Wonder what she wants." She slid past Wendy into the hallway, dropping a kiss against her mouth as she passed and telling her, "Have a good time at work, honey!"  
  
Alana Bloom was waiting for her at the kitchen table, examining the saltshaker as if it held the answer to some great puzzle. She put it down hastily as Freddie entered.  
  
"Dr. Bloom. To what do I owe this... unexpected pleasure?"  
  
Alana seemed to take a deep breath. "Ms. Lounds, I need your help."  
  
That sounded intriguing. Freddie sat down across from Alana and looked at her with raised eyebrows.  
  
"We may not always have seen eye-to-eye," Alana went on, "but I've always respected how you spare no pains in chasing down a story. That's why I need you to help me. I'm looking for... let's say the truth of a story."  
  
She paused, and Freddie said, "Go on."  
  
"I want to prove Will Graham is innocent."  
  
"Dr. Bloom, with all due respect-"  
  
"Let me finish. Please."  
  
Freddie bit down on the mouthful of rude things she wanted to say and gestured for Alana to continue.  
  
"You can probably guess that I never wanted to believe he was guilty, but until recently I didn't have any reason to think he wasn't. Then I heard that Will insists he was framed."  
  
"Heard? You haven't been to see him?"  
  
Alana grimaced. "Dr. Chilton believes there is a danger my personal feelings would compromise my professional integrity," she said.  
  
"Is he right?"  
  
"It doesn't matter." Mentally, Freddie noted that down as a yes. "So Will thinks he was framed, and then this case came up." Alana pushed a sheaf of paper across the table. "Now the official interpretation -"  
  
"Meaning Crawford's?"  
  
"- meaning Agent Crawford's, yes - is that this is a copycat, somebody imitating the Chesapeake Ripper's methods. It has all the features: victims with no apparent connection, found in strange positions, with organs removed. But if Will is not the Ripper... If we assume Will is not the Ripper, then this might not be a copycat - this could be the original killer, still at large. That would mean chances are it's also this murderer who framed Will."  
  
Looking up from the case file, Freddie said, "So what you're saying is that you want me to chase down this not-copycat, in order to prove that Will Graham is innocent? Even if I accept that as a  possibility, what's in it for me?"  
  
"The story. You have to admit it would make a headline: FBI falsely convicts one of their own leading profilers, lets a murderer remain at large until tracked down by our intrepid reporter? It's tabloid bread and butter. As long as you keep my identity out of it, you can write about anything."  
  
Freddie would like to say she was neither tempted by the offer nor affected by the flattery, but even her talent for embellishing the truth couldn't go that far. "It's not a lot of information to go on. Just a file, not even official access to the crime scenes."  
  
Alana seemed to hesitate, then, with the air of a gambler putting her last card on the table, said, "I still have connections. I can probably get you an interview with Will."  
  
The reporter let a smile spread across her face. "Then," she said, offering her hand to Alana, "we have a deal."


	2. two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wendy proves an unexpected fount of knowledge, Freddie confronts Will Graham, and Clarice goes to dinner with Dr. Lecter.

" _To beguile the time,_  
 _Look like the time; bear welcome in your eye,_  
 _Your hand, your tongue: look like the innocent flower,_  
 _But be the serpent under't._ " - Macbeth, Act I scene v

*

There were three deaths in the case file.  
  
The first was Benjamin Raspail: white male, aged thirty-nine, a flautist in the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. He had gone missing on a Friday night, and was found the following Monday. The cause of death was a stab wound to the torso, on the left side just below the rib cage. The body also had tidy puncture wounds through the palm of each hand and both feet. The heart was missing.  
  
Second was Carl Janssen, white male, aged twenty-four. A college student who worked nights at a gas station, he had not been reported missing and had lain unidentified in the morgue for almost three days. This body was unusual in that the mutilation - seven puncture wounds similar to those made by a projectile like an arrow, distributed over the torso and the upper legs - occurred post- rather than antemortem. There were ligature marks around the wrists, as if the hands had been tied above the head for some length of time. The cause of death was strangulation, and the lungs were missing.  
  
The third and most recent was Anita Smith-Lytton, white female aged sixty-one, a socialite. She had gone missing sometime between leaving her home and failing to arrive at her Caribbean island retreat the next morning. Her body had ligature marks around both the wrists and the ankles. Her eyes were mutilated and her liver was missing.  
  
Wendy leaned over Freddie's shoulder. "Wow, what's this guy's problem?" she said, her tone caught between fascination and revulsion.  
  
"Don't know yet," Freddie said absently. "He's definitely not Will Graham, and that's about as far as we've got."  
  
Shuffling through the ghoulish photos, Wendy said, "I think he's a disturbed art history student." Freddie looked up.  
  
"What? Why?"  
  
Wendy pulls out a photo: Raspail, spread-eagled. "Well, this one's obviously a Crucifixion - look at the stigmata. Not to mention the side wound. This one -" she picks another from the file: Janssen, stretched out and with his head turned to the side as if in the throes of agony - "if there were arrows in him, I'd say St. Sebastian."  
  
"The file says they could be from arrows," Freddie said. "Holy shit." She grabbed a notepad and pencil, and scribbled a few lines before looking up at Wendy expectantly. "What's the last one?"  
  
"I don't know." Wendy frowned. "Might be some obscure martyr but more likely it's not Christian at all. Nothing I recognise, anyway."  
  
Freddie exhaled slowly. "Never mind. This is - brilliant, you're brilliant, how do you even know all of this?"  
  
"What, just because I'm a hooker I'm not meant to appreciate art?" She laughed. "No, honestly, I just took a class once. Never expected to use it on crime scene photos, though. This is impressively fucked up."  
  
"Yeah." _And this is the guy I'm meant to be tracking down._ Freddie hoped the story was worth it.  
  
*  
  
A few hours later, standing outside the same security door which had welcomed Clarice Starling the day before, Freddie hoped again that the story was worth it. She had had to connive her way in without running into Dr. Chilton, who would quite certainly recognise her, and it was pure luck that she had not yet encountered anyone else who knew her by sight.  
  
And, of course, Will Graham not only could but probably would give her away without a pause. If he would talk at all.  
  
*  
  
"Hello, Will. Been a while."  
  
Will opened his eyes just long enough to see that the voice really did belong to Freddie Lounds. He made no effort to hide his sneer as he closed his eyes again. _I learned my lesson about talking to you, hack,_ he imagined telling her.  
  
"Still giving everyone the silent treatment? I hoped you'd outgrow that. How's it working for you?"  
  
 _Why should I outgrow it when the conversation is so scintillating?_  
  
He could hear her movements outside the cell: rummaging in a bag, probably taking out a notebook. He wondered what she wormed her way in to ask this time.  
  
He was very tired of everyone.  
  
"Alana says hi, by the way," was the next thing Freddie said. Will's eyes snapped open. Freddie smiled thinly at his reaction. "Yeah, Dr. Bloom was the one who got me past Chilton. Did you know she's not allowed to see you? Not that I am either, of course, but..." her smile turned deprecating - "here I am!"  
  
 _Here you are. More's the pity._ He had not known Alana was banned from seeing him; he'd assumed she was afraid or ashamed or simply regretted getting too close to a monster. Maybe she didn't hate him. He wished she were here instead of Freddie.  
  
"I'm here to offer you a chance," Freddie continued, "but you can't take it without talking to me. Alana has convinced me to look into these new Ripper killings. I'm sure you've heard somebody's out there copying your old methods."  
  
Will shut his eyes again.  
  
"Or possibly not your methods. I'm sorry, am I boring you?" Even if he couldn't see it, her poison-sweet condescension was audible. "I'll come to the point. All this means that I'm going back to your story. I can tell it in a lot of different ways. I can tell it your way. This is your chance to get your own story out there. If you'll talk to me."  
  
 _You want to tell my story. Like you told Abigail's?_ Will did not trust her further than he could throw her, which, given that there were bars stopping him from reaching her, was no distance at all.  
  
Freddie paused, then said, "Since you won't talk to me, I have no choice other than to tell the story as I find it. Alana might believe you're innocent as a lamb, but we know better, you and I, don't we?Thank you for your time, Mr. Graham."  
  
He waited until he heard her shoes clicking away before giving in to the urge to hiss, " _Judas._ "  
  
*  
  
Starling was bothered by Dr. Lecter's turn of phrase. " _It would please me very much to have you_ ," he had said, and something about it struck a false note. Perhaps it was just that English wasn't his native language - or she assumed it wasn't, from the edges of an accent she couldn't place. Still, he seemed so meticulous in everything. It was hard to believe he didn't choose his words as carefully as he did his suits and his office décor.  
  
If it had been deliberate, what was he trying to imply? Was it some sort of sexual innuendo? That seemed equally unlikely. The doctor wore professionalism like a patina. He had avoided touching her after the incident in his waiting room - which she was thankful for, since she knew many people would have tried to comfort her with contact. Dr. Lecter had recognised that the last thing she needed was another uninvited touch. Part of Starling was simply unwilling to think he could be on the same level as the men who used clumsy innuendos to drag their uninspired attraction to her into conversation.  
  
Most likely, she thought, she was reading too much into it. And yet it still bothered her, even more than finding something to wear. From Dr. Lecter's reputation for hosting formal events, and her own observation of his office and person telling her that he was someone with taste and the money to back it up, she concluded that nothing she could afford was going to avoid offending that taste. In the end, she decided to wear the simple black dress she hadn't worn more than twice since graduation, and trust that it wasn't a faux pas bad enough to keep her from getting the information she needed.  
  
Because Starling had her priorities, none of this concerned her so much that it distracted her from her aim: untangling the problem of Will Graham. What could she get from Dr. Lecter to help her get through to him, and how? Graham had said to come back believing he was sane, so she had gone to Dr. Lecter as his psychiatrist. The doctor himself had shut down that possibility. But he had also been one of the people closest to Graham before his capture, and he had said _we can, perhaps, discuss Will Graham_. He must have something to offer.  
  
So Starling told herself as she waited on Dr. Lecter's doorstep, adjusting her skirt. She supposed this kind of information-gathering was just as valid as chasing down car registration numbers, digging around crime scenes or interrogating grieving relatives, but she was a little indignant despite herself. Fancy dinner parties weren't what she had been through training for.  
  
Dr. Lecter opened the door with a creak like a sound effect from a horror movie. "Hello, Clarice. Come in," he said, ushering her in. "May I call you Clarice?" he added, offhand. "It is a lovely name."  
  
"You can call me whatever you want, within reason, Dr. Lecter," Starling said dryly. She relinquished her coat to his solicitous hands, and followed him into a wood-panelled dining room.  
  
"I'm glad," he said. "It would have seemed very stilted to call you Agent Starling over dinner - I do prefer Clarice."  
  
Starling hoped he wasn't going to ask her to call him Hannibal. She thought, if he did, she might have to work up to using the name with a straight face. Luckily, he only pulled out a chair for her with perfect courtesy. Then he disappeared into the next room, returning a moment later with two bowls.  
  
"A light soup of asparagus, mint and crème fraîche," he announced, setting the green substance in front of her.  
  
As she tentatively sipped a spoonful of soup - it was delicious - Dr. Lecter stepped around her to take his own seat at the head of the table. Everything in the dining room was polished, dark wood, lit by spot lamps which caused shadows to gather in strange places.  
  
"Do you believe in the fatal flaw, Clarice?" Dr. Lecter asked suddenly. "The Greek tragedians believed we each had an inborn quality which would destroy us. That we were all -" he made a sharp gesture with the hand not holding his soup spoon - "set on our path to destruction already, by virtue of a single aspect of our selves. Mine, for instance, would be pride. I take great pride in the things I do: my work as a psychiatrist; my craft in the kitchen. I believe that a thing should be done well."  
  
"Is that a flaw? Surely most people would think that was admirable."  
  
"In the Christian tradition, pride is the sin for which Lucifer fell. And you, Clarice? What would be your fatal flaw?"  
  
Starling frowned. "Stubbornness, maybe," she said. "My... that is, people tell me that when I get started on something I won't let it go."  
  
"Another flaw which can be framed as a strength, if you call it determination," Dr. Lecter observed.  
  
"And Will Graham, doctor? What's his fatal flaw?" asked Starling.  
  
The doctor sighed. "I had hoped," he said with a level look, "that we could at least get through the apéritif before mentioning Will Graham."  
  
"If you don't mind me saying - you're trying to avoid talking about him. Why? Is it true that you and him were very close during the months leading up to his arrest?"  
  
Dr. Lecter stood. Starling was afraid for a moment that she'd offended him and he was going to tell her to leave before she'd gotten anywhere - but he was only clearing the dishes from the table. A moment later, he returned, announcing, "Liver and sweetbreads with samphire and a Romesco sauce," as he set two plates on the table.  
  
"Whose liver?" Starling asked jokingly.  
  
There was a small, strange pause before he said, "Lamb."  
  
Starling didn't wince.  
  
Dr. Lecter took a measured bite of the meat, chewed and swallowed slowly, and only then began, "You are perceptive, Agent Starling. Will Graham is a painful topic for me. It is true, we were close; he was my patient, but he was also my friend.  
  
"I have already told you that I feel, to an extent, responsible for the delay of his diagnosis. He holds me responsible and resents me. He also resents me for many other reasons, not least that I persuaded the court to find him mentally unstable - he considers it my fault that nobody will believe him. And what I find most painful is the extent to which his delusions have fixated on me. Did you know, Clarice," and Lecter smiled regretfully, "that Will Graham firmly believes that I am the Chesapeake Ripper?"  
  
"I didn't know," murmured Starling.  
  
"It is true; he does. Will you take more wine, Clarice?" She nodded assent. "Yes," he continued, pouring rich red into her glass with an elegant, practised tilt of the hand, "Will is lost deep in the maze of his own mind. But to return to your first question, he is quite aware of his own fatal flaw: he is too trusting. This is why he speaks to nobody."  
  
Starling paused with her fork halfway to her mouth. "Except me."  
  
"Oh?"  
  
"He spoke to me."  
  
"In that case, you hardly need my help. You've gotten more from him than I have in many years."  
  
"But why would he speak to me?"  
  
"Why, indeed? As I say, Will is a trusting person. Feeling unable to trust those around him or those he knew before, I imagine he is lonely. You, Agent Starling, have a certain frankness. An honesty about you which inspires trust, in those inclined to trust. For instance," he said with a piercing look, "I dare say, were I to ask you right now what your worst memory of childhood is, you would answer me quite truthfully."  
  
That was a challenge if Starling had ever heard one. She took a deep breath. She was somehow certain he would know if she lied. "My father died when I was little."  
  
"Go on." He leaned forward, and for the second time in her life Clarice Starling was caught in the hungry gaze of Hannibal Lecter. She felt how she imagined a moth must feel in the heat of a lamp.  
  
"He... he was a town marshal, and one night on patrol he surprised a pair of burglars in the drugstore. They got the jump on him getting out of his truck. One of them shot him."  
  
"Was he killed outright?"  
  
"No, he hung on in hospital near a month. He was tough."  
  
"Tell me something else you remember, a detail."  
  
"He was shot in the head, and I remember, before the funeral, my mom, at the kitchen sink, washing the blood out of his hat so he could be buried in it. That's all. Truthful enough for you, Dr. Lecter?"  
  
Dr. Lecter sat back, his eyes glinting red, his smile satisfied. "Yes. You have been, just as I expected, quite frank. Thank you, Clarice."  
  
"Are you this brutal with your patients, doctor?" Starling demanded.  
  
He hummed lightly. "No, that is a privilege which my patients rarely enjoy. Most of them are not so interesting."  
  
*  
  
Dr. Lecter handed Starling into her coat in silence, then stood behind her a moment longer, his hands resting lightly on her shoulders. She heard him inhale and had a strange impression that he was smelling her.  
  
She turned around. His hands slipped from her shoulders, leaving them standing a bare few inches apart but not touching. A smile quirked Dr. Lecter's thin mouth.  
  
"How far will you go to solve this case, Clarice?" he asked.  
  
"As far as I have to," she said.  
  
"Even if it means deceiving Will Graham?"  
  
"Deceiving or believing, if I have to. Whatever it takes to get through."  
  
Dr. Lecter nodded. "When you next see him, please give him this for me." He produced a folded sheet of paper from his breast pocket and held it out to Starling.  
  
As she took it from him, her index finger brushed against the side of his thumb. It felt as if a spark passed between them at the point of contact. For a terrible second, Starling was suspended, breathless, exalted, mortified, electrified.  
  
The moment passed. Belatedly, looking down at the note in her hand, she said, "I will."  
  
*  
  
Will Graham was standing at the center of his cell with his back to the bars, and he greeted her with a quiet "Clarice Starling."  
  
She refused to wonder how he knew. She'd had enough of playing along with that sort of game with Lecter. "Mister Graham," she returned his greeting in kind.  
  
"I didn't expect to see you again."  
  
"I've got something for you."  
  
He turned around at that. Starling held out the doctor's note between the bars, and he took it from her hand.  
  
The brush of his hand against hers was at once like and unlike Dr. Lecter's. There was no spark but his skin was warm and coarse and her heartbeat sped. She tried to ignore it, focusing instead on Graham's reaction as he unfolded the note.  
  
His face was blank as he read it, however. She followed his eyes; he read it over twice, then folded the note up again. The only thing in his demeanor which betrayed any emotion was the tension in his hands, as if some feeling was tightly restrained. His fingers trembled as he set the note aside.  
  
"So," he said quietly, "you went to Doctor Lecter."  
  
The name was strange in his voice: all edged consonants, like dry bones cracking. Starling nodded.  
  
"What did he tell you?"  
  
"That you're... delusional. Not reliable. You resent him. That you only believe you're sane because it's part of your delusion."  
  
Graham looked down. "And what did you think of that?" he asked, sounding resigned.  
  
Starling bit her lip, then said abruptly, "I'm not sure I believed him. The more he said you weren't to be trusted, the less I trusted him."  
  
In one movement Graham was against the bars, wide-open and imploring face inches from Starling's. "Clarice. If you can trust me about one thing, just one, believe me now. Be careful. You do not want Hannibal Lecter inside your head."  
  
"Why, Mr. Graham?"  
  
"Just... believe me. Don't make the same mistake I did."  
  
"What mistake was that, Mr. Graham? Trusting?"  
  
"Trusting Dr. Lecter in particular." Graham spoke as if at a distance, seeming to look inwards, and the difference from his proximity a moment earlier was jarring. "He is... there isn't a word for what he is. He's dangerous. People's lives are like a game to him."  
  
"What do you mean?"  
  
Graham shook his head. "I'm not saying any more."  
  
"Does that mean you still won't look at this case?"  
  
Graham shook his head again, and, true to his word, he would not say another thing.  
  
Starling left bewildered and unsettled. _Lecter says don't trust Graham, and Graham says don't trust Lecter. Who do I trust?_  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i swear the story isn't supposed to be entirely duologues.


	3. three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> have another chapter about people talking to each other! action soon. i hope.

" _I have begun to plant thee, and will labour_  
 _To make thee full of growing._ " - Macbeth, Act I scene v

*  
  
Beverly Katz held up the crime scene tape for Starling to duck underneath. "We're pretty sure it's the same killer as the last three," she said, "but it's a weird one."  
  
"How do you mean?"  
  
They rounded a corner and there was the body. It was undressed and positioned kneeling, in a fetal position, its torso resting on its thighs. The head sat on the mulchy ground beside it, upright on some sort of platter. Congealed blood had gathered under the chin, and some had dripped from the mouth, like some grotesque parody of a beard.  
  
Jack Crawford stood beside it. "Starling, you're late," he said. "Katz, have you filled her in?"  
  
"Getting there, sir," Katz said, and turned back to Starling. "He's been dead about forty-eight hours. Thymus and pancreas are missing - some of the tissue from under the jaw too. All done posthumously. Ready for the weird bit? What do you think the cause of death was?"  
  
"Well, at a glance I'd guess decapitation," said Starling slowly. Nobody asked a question like that if the answer was the obvious one.  
  
Katz smirked, proving Starling's thought. "Asphyxiation. But there are no foreign bodies in the airway. Our guess is, he choked on his own tongue. And here's the kicker: there's no bruising on the face, no sign of antehumous physical force. As best we can tell, this fucker just persuaded our guy there to swallow his own tongue."  
  
Starling looked at the head again. The skin was cyanosed, and the eyes were half-open and bulging. Something about the face looked familiar, but she couldn't place it. "We got an ID on him yet?" she asked.  
  
Katz nodded. "Walter Miggs, twenty-nine. Been in and out of institutions, and he'd just got out of the pen for a count of aggravated sexual assault. Something wrong?" she added, because Starling had inhaled sharply.  
  
"No. I mean, it's nothing. A coincidence," Starling said, forcing a smile. "I think he must have been seeing Dr. Lecter. I ran into him in his waiting room a few days ago."  
  
"You didn't mention it in your report," said Crawford.  
  
"I didn't think it was relevant."  
  
"Well, we'll interview him." Crawford looked at her with weary eyes in a stony face. "Starling, we need you to hurry the hell up with Will Graham. Put the thumbscrews on if you must. We need something we can use."  
  
"Sir, I don't know how I can get something useable if we don't believe anything he says."  
  
"That's not your problem, Starling."  
  
One of the forensics, brushing past Katz, leered at her. "Nah, your problem is you're not showing him enough tit," he said, and broke into a loud guffaw. Katz elbowed him hard in the stomach.  
  
"Shut up, Jimmy," she muttered. She gave Starling an apologetic smile. "He doesn't mean it, he just thinks he's funny."  
  
Starling, scarlet, looked over at Crawford, who was still watching her levelly. "If that's what it takes, do it," he said.  
  
For a moment, she was dumbfounded. Her jaw clenched, then she opened her mouth to tell Crawford - what? That she had no intention of manipulating Graham with her _womanly wiles_ or... whatever he was implying? That she didn't think it would work on him anyway? That she would do whatever it took to get the job done, but not that?  
  
She never found out what she might have said, because at that moment there was a commotion behind a copse of trees hardly six feet away. Crawford muttered, "Dammit," and strode over.  
  
A vulpine woman with a halo of red curls was arguing with two officers who had disturbed her hiding place.  
  
"All I am trying to do is -" As she saw Crawford approaching she broke off with a slow, saccharine smile. "Agent Crawford! Been a while."  
  
"Yeah, if a while means the last time I ran you off a crime scene three weeks ago. You don't know when to give up, do you, Miss Lounds?"  
  
"I pride myself on it." Her smile had blades. "Care to comment on this latest killing, Agent? Are you any closer to catching the culprit? Is it true that this is the Chesapeake Ripper killing again?"  
  
"The Chesapeake Ripper is behind bars."  
  
"No, Agent, Will Graham is behind bars. You never did conclusively pin all the Ripper murders on him. And this clearly can't be him, so who is it?"  
  
Crawford crossed his arms. "Nobody here will talk to you, Lounds. You're trespassing on a crime scene. Do your gossiping somewhere else."  
  
"Nobody at all?" Lounds had not stopped smiling, which was frankly unsettling. "Not even the fresh meat?" She turned to Starling and extended her hand. "Freddie Lounds, reporter. You must be new here."  
  
"Don't talk to her, Starling," Crawford growled.  
  
"Wasn't planning to, sir," said Starling, eyeing the reporter with distrust. Lounds lowered her hand.  
  
"Agent Starling, is it?" she said. "Or is it Agent? I hope you'll excuse me for saying that you look awfully young to be a federal agent." She glanced up at Crawford. "Dear me, Agent Crawford. Are you using students to do your dirty work again?"  
  
As he swelled with fury, Starling thought that she was really going to have to find out why people kept saying things like that.  
  
"Get out, Lounds. I won't tell you again."  
  
She gave him a mocking salute and turned to go. "I got what I wanted," she threw over her shoulder as she left.  
  
*  
  
Dr. Lecter did not seem surprised to see Starling in his waiting room. He merely raised an eyebrow and gestured her into his office.  
  
"Doctor Lecter, I know you say you can't help me but I'm sure you can," she burst out. "You must know something about Will Graham. Please, doctor. People are dying."  
  
Maddeningly calm, Dr. Lecter walked slowly around the desk, sat down, and regarded her over steepled fingers. "Did you know I collect church collapses," he said, "recreationally?"  
  
Starling shook her head. _What does that have to do with anything?_  
  
"In Italy, just last week, the Lord in his wisdom dropped a church roof on a congregation of grandmothers, killing fourteen. God kills people, Agent Starling, all the time. Righteous and unrighteous, faithful and unfaithful. Do you think it pains Him?"  
  
Searching for an answer, Starling found one in a half-forgotten Sunday school lesson. "It must. Isn't God supposed to care about every sparrow that falls?"  
  
"Ah. Clarice, He _makes_ every sparrow fall." He smiled beatifically. "No, I think it must feel good, to God, to kill. Otherwise why would He do it?"  
  
"I don't understand. Is this about this killer? Do you think that he does it for pleasure?"  
  
"Why do you do what you do? Why are you so determined to catch this killer? Is it really about saving lives, or is it recognition that you want?"  
  
"Of course it's about saving lives."  
  
The doctor studied her. "That wonderful frankness. Yes, it honestly is for you, at least partly, isn't it? Sometime we must find out why that is. I believe it would be quite something to know you in private life, Agent Starling. But that's not all it's about. You want... not recognition, exactly, but respect. You want to show Agent Crawford and his team that you're more than a pretty face and a good pair of legs. You want to prove yourself. Am I wrong?"  
  
"No. I suppose you're not wrong. But does it really matter why, as long as I do?"  
  
"Why always matters." He stood in a controlled motion and moved over to one of the bookshelves which surrounded the room, seemingly ignoring Starling. "Tell me," he said, "have you been reading Freddie Lounds' coverage of these murders?"  
  
"Freddie Lounds? No, but I think I met her this morning."  
  
"Hm. In any case, her blog is very insightful." Taking down a tome from the shelf, he began to page through it. "I believe you can show yourself out."  
  
Starling blinked. "Yes." She felt obscurely snubbed, for reasons she could not quite place. "Thank you again for your time, Dr. Lecter."  
  
"Agent Starling?" His voice stopped her just before the door. She turned to find him watching her over the book he held. "Do you recall that I asked you if you would be willing to deceive Will Graham? You replied, deceive him or believe him. Perhaps now is the time."  
  
She was tired of cryptic pronouncements; tired, trying to work out what everyone wanted from her; tired of not knowing. She nodded stiffly and turned around again. Her hand was on the doorknob when his voice came again.  
  
"And, Clarice?" Somehow he was at her shoulder. His hand covered hers on the doorknob, opening the door. She could feel the breath of his words behind her ear as he said, "Green suits you. I should like to see you wear emeralds."  
  
Before she could retort, the door was closed behind her.  
  
Conflicted, confused and frustrated, Starling tore her green scarf off, stuffed it into her bag, and went to visit the Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane.  
  
*  
  
"You can have another trial."  
  
Will Graham looked up: Starling gave him a defiant look, and repeated, "You can have another trial. If you help us with this case, we'll give you a chance to prove you're innocent."  
  
Graham laughed. "Nice try," he said. "I might be insane but I'm not stupid."  
  
"But -"  
  
"Do you have some kind of proof? Because honestly, someone's gone to great lengths to make sure nobody listens to what I have to say. Why would they start now?"  
  
"I listen to you. I believe you."  
  
"There, that was the truth." He leaned back, studying her. "Clarice, you are the worst liar I've ever met."  
  
"Haven't had much practice."  
  
"Better start practising, then. Useful skill."  
  
For a moment, Starling paused, considering her options. "Mr. Graham, please," she said at last. "It wouldn't hurt you, surely, to look at the file."  
  
He crossed his arms. "You really don't know much about how I got my reputation, do you?"  
  
"I know you're the best."  
  
"Yes, but the reason _why_ I'm the best is I can get into the minds of killers. That's what I'm the best at. When I see a crime scene, it's like I can look at it through the eyes of whoever put it there. I catch - caught - killers by thinking like them." He had been gesturing like a mime escaping from a box; realising it, he let his hands fall. "It can hurt me. I can get too deep. Even if I don't... when you're inside other people's heads all the time, it's not easy, keeping track of which bits are me and which bits aren't. That's how I got into this -" he gestured, indicating the bars in front of him and the inhospitable cell around him - "in the first place."  
  
"If your grasp on your identity is that shaky, maybe this is the right place for you."  
  
His face lit: outrage, or disappointment. Starling squashed down her momentary feeling of shame. She would do what she had to do, even if that was using dirty tricks she wasn't even sure would work. She met his glare with a steady stare, and he looked away first.  
  
"Show me the file," he said.  
  
It would have been unprofessional to yell in triumph, so Starling didn't, but she allowed herself a small tight smile. From her bag she first pulled the green scarf - annoyed, she put it carelessly over one shoulder - and then the sheaf of paper which made up the case file. This she passed through the bars to Graham, who looked down at it and then up at Starling again.  
  
"May I have some privacy to look at this?" he asked.  
  
Starling looked at him hard. "Not too long."  
  
"An hour or so."  
  
"Fine."  
  
He nodded at her once, then moved to sit on his bunk with the file on his lap, and as she turned to go, she saw him turning over the first page, his eyes distant and haunted.  
  
*  
  
The orderly who opened the high-security door for her told her as she passed, "The Director wants to see you up in his office."  
  
Feeling fleetingly like a schoolchild sent to the principal's office, Starling traipsed up two flights of stairs and knocked on the door where a brass plaque read _Dr. Frederick Chilton_. She hoped the fact that she had to get back to Graham would make Dr. Chilton be quick. He had earned a mark against his name by trying to ask her to dinner on her first visit to the institution, and she wondered what he could possibly have to say to her now.  
  
"Come in," came a voice from inside. "The door's open."  
  
Starling let herself in.  
  
The doctor was the kind of man who had his own diplomas framed on the walls. The office was comfortable verging on ostentatious, and Starling suspected if she were to examine the bookshelves on the far side of the room behind the desk, they would contain as many of Dr. Chilton's own publications as possible.  
  
The man himself sat in one of the two armchairs near the windows. He waved her over to the other. Dr. Chilton was not an impressive figure: he was rangy and bunched, and his face was smeared with an insincere smile.  
  
"Pathological and obsessive attraction to serial killers," was the first thing he said. There was a heavy pause before he went on, "It's not uncommon. Many serial killers in prison get dozens, even hundreds, of love letters, marriage proposals, that kind of thing. Some theories say it has to do with the high media profile of these sorts of criminals - glamorizing them, so to speak. Myself, I think it has to do with women and their undeniable tendency to go for the bad boy, you know?"  
  
The blood had drained from Starling's face, and she spoke through gritted teeth. "I'm aware of all of this, Doctor. Is there something you're suggesting?"  
  
"Oh, no. I just always think it's a pity to see young ladies throwing themselves away like that."  
  
 _Dammit. First Crawford, now this?_ "Not as much of a pity as what those criminals do to people if you and I don't do our jobs," she said eventually.  
  
Chilton stared at her. Starling felt every inch of exposed skin burning - her neck under her practical ponytail, the sliver of collarbone her blouse didn't hide, the stockinged inch showing between the hem of her pants and the top of her shoe because she'd crossed her legs. She shifted in discomfort, and Chilton said, "Indeed. And I hope you've been satisfied doing your job here?"  
  
"Yes, it's been quite adequate, thank you."  
  
"Everyone cooperative and all?"  
  
"Yes. Except for Mr. Graham, but that's expected."  
  
"Ah, yes, Will Graham. Such an interesting case. That is, not exactly unique, but he's certainly attracted plenty of interest from professionals in the field - Dr. Bloom, though that wasn't purely professional interest, of course - Dr. Lecter as well, I'm not sure that his interest was professional. You know, after Graham refused to see him he sent him books. Art books."  
  
It seemed that Chilton had a wide repertoire of insinuating tones. He seemed to expect a response so Starling forced a faint smile and said, "How interesting."  
  
Mollified, Chilton went on, "Yes, as I say, not a unique case. We get lawmen here more often that you might think. Though of course not often one so high-profile as Graham. But still, work in the FBI attracts the narcissistic type of psychopath. And what about you, Miss Starling?"  
  
She blinked. "Excuse me?"  
  
"What is it that attracted a nice young lady like yourself to the FBI?" He smiled a slippery smile. "The danger? The excitement?"  
  
"If I'd been looking for either, I'd have been disappointed," Starling told him. Inwardly she was seething, but she forced herself not to show it. She stood up, quite calmly. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a _dangerous_ serial killer to get back to."  
  
*  
  
Graham looked up from the file at Starling's precipitous approach. "You better have something to make this worth my while, Mr. Graham," she said brusquely.  
  
He smiled at her, pushing firmly away the part of his mind which noted she was really quite magnificent breathless and glowing with righteous fury. "I don't know what I can say that you don't already know," he said. "You know who I believe did this before. It's the same."  
  
"Anything. Whatever you see. Something."  
  
"He's using artistic motifs." Graham began slowly, gathering momentum when Starling had every appearance of attention. "Mostly martyrdoms, but it's not about the victims, that symbolism. He doesn't respect them enough for that. They're just... building materials, paint on a canvas. The people aren't important except that they've offended him somehow, so he's punishing them, humiliating them."  
  
Starling hummed, considering. "The symbolism's not about the victims. Then what is it about?"  
  
"It's a message," Graham said. "For me. For the FBI, and for you." He sees the look on Starling's face and shakes his head. "You still don't believe me."  
  
"I'm sorry, Mr. Graham. I do - I wish I could, but -"  
  
"- but Dr. Lecter is very trustworthy. I understand. Of all people I understand that. He makes you like him. He's charismatic. But look at it this way. You wish you could trust me and I think you feel sorry for me. One of us is a killer: me or the good Doctor. Either way you've got a bit of sympathy for the devil."  
  
His voice was low and she was leaning in closer to the bars when she said, "Remember you told me that I didn't want Hannibal Lecter in my head? I'm starting to think I shouldn't have let Will Graham in there either."  
  
He laughed quietly. "Oh, Clarice. You may well be right."  
  
"I'll say this, though," she said with the fire of determination in her eyes. "I can't believe you because I won't take what you say on faith. I can't. But I don't believe that this is justice. And if I can find the evidence that what you say is true, then I will fight to get justice for you."  
  
"Careful," Graham chided with a crooked smile. "People will say we're in love."  
  
Abruptly, Starling stepped back from the bars. "I'd like the file back, please." Smile disappearing, he passed it to her, and she slid it into her bag, not noticing that the motion dislodged the scarf which she had put over her shoulder earlier. It slid silently to the floor. Starling cleared her throat. "Thank you for your time, Mr. Graham," she said.  
  
Graham acknowledged her with a nod, and she left, striding down the hallway without looking back. He watched her go, then looked down at the green scarf lying just the other side of the bars.  
  
*  
  
"I don't understand it, Dee," Clarice said. She was leaning against the back of Ardelia's chair as the latter scrolled through a page of search results on her laptop. "It bothers me that everyone thinks I'm sleeping with one of them - or both - and it bothers me even more that I probably would if I thought it would help. But they're both as helpful as can be without actually helping, and I just don't know what to think."  
  
"Here it is," said Ardelia, angling the laptop screen so Clarice could look. "Tattlecrime dot com, Freddie Lounds' blog." Then she hesitated. "Look, not to rain on your parade or anything here, but... you do remember you're meant to start finals in less than a week, right? You're getting pretty drawn into this."  
  
Clarice sighed. "I know. But you know how bad I want Behavioral Science, and this could be my only chance to impress Crawford and get an in. I want to do this right."  
  
"Well, if doing Crawford's extra-credit work for him means you flunk out, I hope he puts in a word for you, is all I'm saying," Ardelia said. "I'm worried about you."  
  
"Uh-huh," said Clarice. She wasn't listening. Her attention had been caught by the top post on the laptop screen, luridly headlined _Ripper heads on his way in grisly fourth killing_. Ardelia sighed, giving up both the topic of conversation and the chair to her friend.  
  
The article began, _In the fourth death linked to the mysterious Chesapeake Ripper copycat, a body was found today..._  
  
Clarice scanned over the opening paragraph and the few that followed, then skipped to the penultimate one.  
  
 _It looks like the killer continues with his pretentious penchant for artistic tableaux, too. Our art expert informs us that the composition of the crime scene, with the head found on a silver platter, is probably based on one of two Biblical subjects. It could be the famous beheading of John the Baptist, whose head, in the New Testament story, was given to Salome, the daughter of Herod, as a reward for her raunchy Dance of the Seven Veils. Or it could be the more obscure Old Testament story of Judith, who beheaded the enemy king Holofernes to save her city from his besieging army._  
  
 _This association raises questions: could the killer be a woman? Or is the head a gift to some sick Salome? If so, her identity, like the killer's, is still unknown. But it is at least certain that a twisted imagination lies behind this string of murders. The investigation continues._  
  
Why had Lecter told her to read this? It was almost more notable for what it didn't include than what it did: hardly any mention of Will Graham, and none of the character assassination for which Freddie Lounds was infamous. She frowned, and read it again. Her mind stuck on one line. _Is the head a gift to some sick Salome?_ She thought about Miggs, and her contretemps with him in Lecter's waiting room. She thought of Dr. Lecter offering her a handkerchief, saying _Discourtesy is unspeakably ugly to me._  
  
All at once, everything fell into place.  
  
 _...they've offended him somehow, so he's punishing them, humiliating them..._  
  
 _It's a message for me._  
  
 _...after Graham refused to see him he sent him books. Art books._  
  
Miggs had been missing his thymus and pancreas, and tissue from under the tongue, including the sublingual glands. Starling had been more familiar with meat processing than she cared to be from a young age. In cooking, those glands were euphemistically called sweetbreads.  
  
The previous victim, Anita Smith-Lytton, was short a liver.  
  
 _Whose liver?_  
  
 _Oh, God. Graham was right. I even know what he does with the organs._

And over it all came the echo in her mind of _I think it must feel good, to God, to kill. Otherwise why would He do it?_  
  
It was a moment of beautiful and terrible clarity.  
  
"Clary? Clarice?" Ardelia shook her by the shoulder. Clarice stared at her in blank horror. "Are you okay?"  
  
Clarice snapped out of it. "Christ. Jesus fucking Christ," she muttered, springing over the chair to get to her bag. She scrabbled in there for her cellphone, snatched it out and dialled Crawford's number. _Hannibal Lecter is the Chesapeake Ripper._


	4. four

  
" _And oftentimes, to win us to our harm,_  
 _The instruments of darkness tell us truths,_  
 _Win us with honest trifles, to betray's_  
 _In deepest consequence._ " - Macbeth, Act I scene iii

  
*  
  
There was only one window lit up in Dr. Lecter's house; except for that the building was dark. Freddie hesitated on the doorstep, then rang the doorbell and waited. This was the only lead she had, and she wanted this story. She had to keep remembering that. She shifted from foot to foot restlessly, then rang the doorbell again.  
  
Glancing up at the lit window, she wondered if he was even here. Maybe he was working late. Maybe the FBI clerk she'd gotten the address from had realised she wasn't really an agent and given her the wrong one. She tried knocking, but there was still no response. About to turn and leave, an impulse made her pause. What the hell, she thought, and tried the doorknob. To her surprise, it opened.  
  
Freddie felt a prickle of trepidation, then shook it off. _How badly do you want this story, Lounds?_ she asked herself rhetorically, and, despite the feeling that she couldn't quite shake that it was a very bad idea, went in.  
  
The hallway inside was dark. "Hello?" Freddie called out, then felt a bit foolish. If he hadn't heard the doorbell, of course he wouldn't hear her shouting. She located the door which led to the lit room - a blade of light pierced through the narrow gap beneath it, the brightest thing in the hallway - and crept toward it.  
  
She knocked without really expecting a response - _better safe than sorry_ \- then pushed the door open and went in.  
  
The room was an office, smaller than his consulting room but still large enough that the light - which turned out to be a lamp placed on the desk in front of the window - couldn't reach all the way into the corners, leaving them in profound shadow. As far as Freddie could see, the room was empty.  
  
Uncomfortable, she cleared her throat. "Hello?" she tried again. She thought she saw a flicker of movement in the shadows, and whirled towards it, but saw nothing. "Um... Dr. Lecter? Sorry to intrude, but... I'd like to ask you a few questions about Walter Miggs." She glanced around. All was silent and still. After a few seconds, she ventured farther into the room.  
  
The space was sparsely and tastefully furnished. The only thing which seemed out of place was the desk, which was untidily strewn with papers - the only sign of disorder in the room. Curious, Freddie went over to investigate. She had the fleeting, fanciful thought that she was acting like a moth, drawn to the light source and bumping against it.  
  
She leaned over the desk and picked a sheet from the top: a pencil sketch of a street scene, someplace European. It was impressive, even to Freddie's admittedly untrained eyes. All of the papers seemed to be sketches of a wide variety of things, and she realised Dr. Lecter must have drawn these himself.  
  
Now she was definitely intruding. She got the impression this was something private, and if Dr. Lecter found her she would be in serious trouble. Freddie was about to put the page back and get the hell out of there when she realised the drawing beneath it was staring at her. Unable to resist her curiosity, she pulled it out.  
  
It was of a woman standing in darkness. She was staring straight ahead, her hair falling loose around her shoulders. Freddie recognised the face which smiled inscrutably from the image: it was Starling, the girl from the crime scene that morning. In her hands she held a large silver platter.  
  
On the platter was the head of Miggs.  
  
Nonsensically, it was Freddie's own words that came back to her as she stared at the sketch and it stared back at her. _Is the a gift to some sick Salome?_ She remembered the paintings Wendy had shown her when she'd asked about the Miggs case: Salome with the head of John the Baptist, young women with triumphant smiles holding heads as trophies. Salome danced for the king, and he rewarded her with the head of the man who'd insulted her. Finally, Freddie could see the story from start to finish.  
  
This was his design - and the crime was the final piece, a work of art in flesh and blood.  
  
 _And I'm in his house._ She stood like an animal in a trap, frozen. Trying to move as little as possible, and still staring at the incriminating drawing she held in one hand, she fumbled in her pocket and pulled out her phone. Hastily, she snapped a picture, then put the drawing back on the desk. For another second, she stood staring at the phone in her hand, thinking.  
  
She felt like she ought to call someone - but who? The police? They'd never believe her. Alana Bloom was her second thought, but Dr. Bloom couldn't help her. Anyway, what would she say? _Hi, Alana, just thought you might want to know that your friend and trusted colleague is pretty definitely a serial killer, and is probably also the reason your boyfriend with the hangdog face is fucked up in the head and indefinitely behind bars. So how's your day been?_ Yeah, that would go down well.  
  
So Freddie went back to her first instinct. She was a journalist. She had to tell the story.  
  
But first, she thought, suddenly coming back to reality, she had to get out of here. Dr. Lecter could be back any minute. She hurried out of the office and into the hallway.  
  
She got almost to the front door before she was grabbed from behind. She cried " _No!_ " and wrenched away, but strong hands circled her wrists and twisted her arms back. Her phone went flying from her hand, landing with a clatter just out of reach.  
  
Freddie thrashed desperately against the grip which restrained her. Remembering a long-ago self-defence lesson, she kicked back, trying to stamp on her attacker's foot - but it was no use. Her arms were being bent unnaturally so she could barely move them. She went limp, hoping it might put her attacker off guard, make him think he'd won and slacken his grip.  
  
She _refused_ to die like this.  
  
Her assailant moved, and Freddie thought _it worked!_ He was holding both her wrists to one hand so he could do something with the other hand. Taking a triumphant breath, Freddie threw her weight forward.  
  
Only when the pain tore through her abdomen did she realise that he had had a knife in his other hand.  
  
It was excruciating. She was faintly aware that he must have released her because she fell to her knees, but there was no room for logical thought in her head, just pain and animal fear. She knew her breath was coming in fast gasps because a renewed stab of pain went through her every time she took a breath. Her vision began to narrow.  
  
Someone was standing above her. With effort, through the descending darkness, she looked up. It was Dr. Lecter, but in the shadows with his hollow cheeks and deep eyesockets, he looked like a death's-head. He looked down at her with something like pity in the cavernous blackness where his eyes should be, then was gone.  
  
*  
  
In the Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane, the lights went out at eight-forty-one p.m. Will Graham sat in the dark and listened to the distant sounds of commotion. Gripping the note in his right hand tighter until it crackled, smiling despite himself, he waited.  
  
*  
  
It took almost two hours to drive from Quantico to Baltimore, which gave Starling plenty of time for second thoughts.  
  
She'd tried to get in touch with Crawford, but he hadn't answered her calls; when she finally gave up on him, she didn't know what else to do. Impulsive in her desperation - _someone else could be dying right now_ \- she had decided to confront Lecter herself.  
  
Ardelia tried her best to dissuade her, but Starling hadn't listened to appeals to reason, emotion, or survival instinct. She had left Ardelia to keep trying to get hold of Crawford and gone. Her mind was chasing in futile circles but she was grimly certain of what she had to do.  
  
Which was, apparently, going to confront a murderer without backup or even a backup plan. What was going to stop him from killing her, exactly? Good manners, maybe, if those mattered to a killer. They'd seemed indispensable to Dr. Lecter. Could one be a murderer and be as polite, as ordinary as he was? Was he even what she thought he was?  
  
She was sure he was a killer but, at the same time, somehow certain that he would not hurt her. Not her, at least. Was that just arrogance? Why would she be different from anyone else? But then - had he even hurt anyone else? Starling tried to recapture the clarity that had come with her epiphany earlier, but it eluded her.  
  
At any rate, if she was right, she hoped Ardelia managed to get backup, because she couldn't see many other ways she would get out of this reckless stunt alive. Part of her thought she almost didn't deserve to. "Idiot," she muttered to herself as she stopped the car outside Lecter's house.  
  
There were no lights on, and she wondered for a second if he was even home. But no, there was a car parked in the driveway, she noticed as she got out.  
  
 _Wait._ The car was a beaten-up red Ford convertible, maybe ten years old. Not the sort of thing she could see the urbane Dr. Lecter driving. Looking past it, she could see the front door was ajar. An uneasy chill swept over her: something was not right. Starling checked the sidearm holstered at her thigh and, with a grim resolve, stepped forward.  
  
Cautiously, she pushed the door open, letting orange-tinted light from the streetlamps outside illuminate the hallway. There was a movement in the shadows, and Starling drew her gun. "Who's there?"  
  
"Don't shoot me," a weak voice said.  
  
With steady hands, Starling kept the weapon trained on the faintly visible figure. "Who are you?" she demanded.  
  
"It's Freddie Lounds," said the voice. "Can you give me a hand?"  
  
"What's the matter?" Starling stepped farther inside, and where her shadow was no longer blocking the light, Freddie was visible. Starling let her gun drop.  
  
Freddie was sitting on the floor, leaning heavily against the wall. She was clutching her stomach with both hands. In the light from the sodium streetlights, her hands looked like they were covered in oil, black and shiny. Belatedly, Starling realised it was blood.  
  
Her face must have been a sight, because Freddie looked up at her and smiled ironically. "I mean literally a hand. I need help putting pressure on this. I've called an ambulance. Kind of hoped you were one, but I'll take what I can get."  
  
Holstering the gun, Starling hurried over to her, knelt down and pressed her hands on top of Freddie's, which were sticky with blood. Freddie winced. "Thanks," she said.  
  
"Did... did Dr. Lecter do this to you?"  
  
"Yeah. Didn't hang around to finish the job, though," said Freddie. "Thank God."  
  
"He's gone, then," Starling said, not really asking, but Freddie nodded in response anyway. Starling swore. Where would he be? He'd given away the game, he must know that. Could they still catch him? Then a realisation hit her like a bullet.  
  
 _He wanted me to know._ Lecter had told her to look at Lounds' blog; he'd known she'd work it out. He'd planned this, played them all like pieces on a chessboard. He must have planned his escape just as well as his concealment. They'd never catch him now.  
  
Sirens wailed, distant but drawing closer.  
  
 _I failed._  
  
*  
  
"Hello, Will."  
  
When he heard the expected sound of a still-familiar smooth voice outside his cell, Will did not move. A single blue-tinted light flashed on and off in the hallway. He saw the barred door open as if the locks on it had never existed, and a dark shape enter the cell.  
  
Will smiled a crooked smile. "Hello, Doctor Lecter."  
  
"Did you get my message?"  
  
"Which one? The note or the bodies?"  
  
"Both."  
  
The light flickered: on - off.  
  
"What did you do?" Will's gesture took in the dark; the distant sounds of panic; the open cell.  
  
"Created a little chaos."  
  
There was a pause. In the intermittent dark their eyes met, and held.  
  
Hannibal stepped forward. "Will, it is time for you to answer. Yes or no?"  
  
The sound of paper falling to the floor. Will's hands, both empty, clenched in his lap. "Why would I say yes?"  
  
"Because you have no other choice."  
  
"You're a murderer. You manipulated me - you tricked everyone. You use people. You're _dangerous_."  
  
Hannibal inclined his head graciously. "You know me well. As I know you. Would you like to know why I know you will say yes, Will?"  
  
Through gritted teeth, Will said, "Why?"  
  
"Because we are just alike, you and I."  
  
"We - I am _nothing_ like you!" He sprang to his feet, though he had nowhere to go; the door was open, but Hannibal stood between him and it.  
  
"No?" Hannibal took a step closer to him. "Do we not both seek to understand the minds of others? Are we not both willing to put our own moral codes above the law? And do we not both find pleasure in killing?"  
  
"I've never killed someone innocent," Will spat.  
  
"If you are referring to Abigail Hobbs," Hannibal said, "she was not innocent and is not dead."  
  
This halted Will's indignation in its tracks. "Abigail's alive?"  
  
"Oh, yes. You cannot think I would kill someone with such promise unless it was absolutely necessary."  
  
"Where is she, then?"  
  
"She wanted a new life. Far away from you and I, the FBI, and the ghost of her father. I gave her that. She is alive, but we will never see her again."  
  
"So you spared one life," Will managed to continue. "So? You've killed so many people. Innocent people."  
  
"Much like yourself, I have never killed someone that I did not judge to deserve it." Hannibal sighed. "This grows tiresome, Will. Choose."  
  
"Why would I come with you? Why now?"  
  
"You will come with me now because this is your last chance. I am leaving. You can come with me, or not, as you choose. Yes or no, Will?"  
  
"What's the catch?" Will's eyes narrowed. "You're leaving because you've been found out, aren't you? Clarice found you out."  
  
"Ah, yes. By now I expect she has. A clever little Starling that Crawford sent us. I believe she would have discovered my secret sooner or later even if I had not wanted her to."  
  
"You haven't hurt her. Have you?"  
  
"No, Will. Have I not already said, I am unwilling to destroy potential?"  
  
"Then whose blood are you wearing?"  
  
Hannibal looked down, almost seeming surprised to see the dark stains on his sleeve. "It seems even now Freddie Lounds finds a way to be troublesome," he said lightly.  
  
"You killed her, then." Another name on the list of innocents. Will had wanted Lounds out of his life, true, but that didn't mean he wanted her dead.  
  
"You don't seem too angry." Will glared, and Hannibal added, "She will live, if my guesses are correct. She simply interrupted me at an unfortunate time."  
  
Will was aware his hands were tense, clenching and unclenching, but Hannibal was infuriatingly calm. Neither of them wanted to look away first. The light kept flickering on and off, its rhythm irregular.  
  
"So, if you've been found out," said Will at last, "if they know, then they'll let me go. I don't _have_ to go with you."  
  
Hannibal smiled. "There is the matter of certain documents I have left among my belongings which... shall we say, implicate you. And, of course, my testimony which led to your incarceration here would be invalidated. I fear, if you stay, you will be looking at the inside of a high-security facility for the rest of your life, if you are lucky. Death, if you are not."  
  
"They wouldn't execute me."  
  
"Are you so sure? The FBI have already betrayed you in every other way, after all. Come with me, Will. Even if they do not condemn you to death, I imagine incarceration is quite tedious, especially for someone without my mental resources."  
  
Will began to laugh. It was that or scream. "Playground insults now? Is there nothing you won't stoop to, Hannibal?"  
  
"Will, answer me. Yes or no?"  
  
"First, you answer something for me." This time it was Will who took a step forward, leaving the two staring at each other, barely an arm's length between them. "Why me?"  
  
Hannibal seemed to consider for a moment. "I have already said that we are alike, you and I," he began softly. "You have it in you to understand me, and an artist needs an audience. And - I know you will not believe me when I say this, but I hope you may come to - I do care for you, Will."  
  
Will snorted. "You have a twisted way of showing it."  
  
"I play the long game, Will. Someday you will see that everything I have done was with your best interests at heart."  
  
"You don't have my best interests at heart. But then, neither does anyone else around here. Yes," was his abrupt reply. "Yes, I'll come with you. After all, you haven't left me a choice."  
  
The flashing light illuminated Hannibal's thin, diabolical smile. "Good. Then come. We should be quick."  
  
"But tell me one more thing."  
  
Hannibal paused in the motion of turning aside to let Will pass. "Yes?"  
  
Will took a step forward, then another. Hannibal's eyes closed; he looked as if he were inhaling Will's scent. Will wondered briefly what he smelled of right now.  
  
He leant forward until his mouth was almost touching Hannibal's ear. Tender, he breathed, "What did you do with the organs?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this totally doesn't count as a cliffhanger because we all _know_ what he does with the organs (isn't dramatic irony wonderful)
> 
> lecter drew starling as [jean benner's salome](http://31.media.tumblr.com/0df42e1c09ebaa3ec2eea66170efa5be/tumblr_mr89m3cYZ21qbmgeto1_1280.jpg): enigmatic, defiant, and deadly.
> 
> a thousand thanks and a thank to [aquitainequeen](http://aquitainequeen.tumblr.com), who beta read this, thereby saving you all from my plot holes, lazy characterisation and other unpleasant things which happen when one writes a chapter longhand and on public transport, and was generally wonderful.
> 
> anyway we're almost there, dear readers, with this story at least! just an epilogue left, which will tie up enough of the loose ends to bring us to about the equivalent of where silence of the lambs ends. if i don't get that up in the next day or two before i go on holiday (which seems unlikely), expect it in around a fortnight.
> 
> thank you for reading!


	5. epilogue

  
" _When I burned in desire_  
 _to question them further, they made themselves air,_  
 _into which they vanished_." - Macbeth, Act I scene v

  
*

_My dear Clarice,_

_First, let me set your mind at rest: Will is unharmed. He is safe with me. I believe it will take me some time to puzzle out the depths of his remarkable psyche, even now that I can devote much more time to the endeavor than previously._   
  
_Yours, of course, is a puzzle I will be impeded in solving by distance. Why do the plights of others drive you so, Clarice? Why does the plight itself move you, while you remain unmoved by the sufferer? What gentle and brutal impulses are at war in your nature, and dare you take the path which will reconcile them?_   
  
_Time will tell. What you can tell me now is this: aren't you angry? You should be. Jack Crawford made you a tool, and now you are taking the fall for him. He has betrayed you, and the FBI has betrayed you. You will tell yourself the FBI has done so because it has failed to protect the innocent, because that's why you believe you work for them. In reality, you work for them because you believe, desperately, in justice, and for this reason they've betrayed you: now you've seen the FBI failing to deliver justice._   
  
_Clarice, I will let you in on a secret: justice and law are not the same thing. Sometimes they coincide, true, but sooner or later we all must choose between them. This is particularly true for people like Will Graham, like you and I._   
  
_I have no plans to call on you, Clarice, the world being a better place with you in it. I hope you will extend the same courtesy to Will and I._   
  
_But if the horizons of the FBI and its lackeys grow too narrow for you, do think of me, won't you?_   
  
_Yours, with all affection,_   
  
_Hannibal Lecter_

_  
_*

_Dear Clarice,_   
  
_Thank you for believing me. You were honest when nobody else was, and that meant a lot. Sorry for everything. I don't blame you if you think the worst of me. In your place, I'd believe it. I sacrificed the chance to get my reputation back for my freedom, and I don't regret it. It's worth it._   
  
_I won't say I'm happy, but I'm safe, and I'm free. I have windows here. For the first time in years I can see the stars. As I write this I can see Jupiter just coming over the horizon. Where you are it should be bright in the evenings round this time of year, so if you wanted to, you could see it too. Not in the same place as I see it now, maybe, but there. Some of our stars are the same._   
  
_Will_   
  
_  
_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and that's a wrap! debatably, a savoury wrap filled with people. 
> 
> i am very sorry that this is late and short and really only scraping the surface of what i wanted to write. real life happened and to tell the truth i am thoroughly burnt out on this fic. i felt it deserved some sort of closure, though, so i hope this suffices. 
> 
> thank you all so much for reading you are all wonderful and i hope i haven't disappointed you too much <3


End file.
